Page 27 of A Witchy Spell Ride

I almost laughed. It came out as a sound I didn’t recognize.

She set the pan down. “We’re going out the back. Hoodie up. Head down. You do not turn around if someone says your name. You do not help a stranger with a ‘dropped phone.’ You get in the car.”

“What car?” I frowned.

She jangled keys. “Borrowed from Cross.”

“Cross knows?”

“Cross knows he lent me a car to get more candles,” she said brightly. “Which is not a lie. You are a candle.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“And yet you love me.”

I did. God, I did.

We killed the lights. I locked the door twice, then a third time for superstition. We stepped into the alley, and the humidity kissed my face like a warning. The bells at ankle height were silent as we moved. The hair on the back-door latch, a new one Briar had insisted we tape, lay unbroken. The chalk line at the hinge sat like a quiet dare.

We slid into the borrowed car. Briar drove like a demon if demons followed all posted signs until they didn’t. She took three extra turns to see if anyone tailed us. No sedan. No hooded figure. Just a city doing what it always does, pretending it doesn’t notice the undercurrent that feeds it.

Her apartment sat four blocks deeper into the Quarter, tucked over a voodoo shop whose owner minded his business and everyone else’s. Inside, she turned on every light and set a pot of water to boil.

“For tea?” I asked.

“For pasta,” she said. “And also, tea. Fear burns calories. Stay hydrated.”

“I’m not eating.”

“You will when you smell the garlic.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. I sat instead, elbows on knees, palms over my eyes. The note burned behind my lids, a negative image that wouldn’t let me blink it away.

You were made to be adored.

Watched.

Worshipped.

Soon, you’ll see.

I’m not the danger.

I’m the answer.

The wordanswerstuck under my ribs like a bone. To what? To who? To which question I wasn’t brave enough to ask?

“Talk to me,” Briar said, voice clipped clean of play this time. She slid a bowl in front of me and a glass of water I didn’t notice I finished until it was empty. “Everything. From the moment you woke up.”

I told her. Most of it. Enough to make a map. Not the photo. Not the part where my dreams felt like hands that knew me. Not the part where a name kept pressing against my teeth and I refused to let it out.

She made notes on a Post-it with a skull printed in the corner. “We establish a baseline of crazy,” she said. “Then we measure deviations.”

“You sound like Cross.”

“I’ve been rubbing off on him.”

“Gross.”